U.S. Pat. No. 5,221,987, issued to Laughlin, entitled FTIR Modulator, discloses an apparatus that employs frustrated total internal reflection (FTIR) to modulate and switch beams of light or optical signals. U.S. Pat. No. 5,221,987 is expressly incorporated by reference herein for all purposes.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,221,987, discloses a method of developing frustrated total internal reflection by moving two surfaces into and out of proximal contact with one another. Once these surfaces are brought into proximal contact an electrostatic "bond" is formed between the surfaces. To later separate the surfaces requires breaking the electrostatic bond. Overcoming the bond may add to the difficulty and time required in separating these two surfaces. In one embodiment, U.S. Pat. No. 5,221,987 taught a method of bending one of the surfaces in one plane to address this problem.
The inventor of the inventions disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,221,987 has developed several improvements to the FTIR device disclosed therein that are the subject of this present application.